Brandon Hannah and Nick Plesh with Grand Natural Inc. pick up used kitchen grease from Chris Burgers restaurant in Winchester. Used grease from restaurants can now be turned into clean-burning bio fuel.

Grease theft bill

What it does: Increases fines from $500 to $1,000 for first offense, $1,000 to $5,000 for second offense, and from $2,000 to $10,000 for third offense. Authorizes police to impound thieves' vehicles.

Filthy kitchen grease laced with fried bits of food particles isn’t what one would naturally think of as a hot item for stealing.

But with the growing practice of converting grease into environmentally friendly vehicle fuel and the rising prices it is fetching on the market, thieves increasingly are coveting something that in the past restaurants just wanted to get rid of.

Theft of used cooking oil has become so troubling that Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, decided to write a bill to boost penalties for violators and beef up enforcement. Assembly Bill 1566, which would hike the maximum fine to $10,000, soared through the Assembly 70-0 in August. Holden said he is optimistic Gov. Jerry Brown will sign the bill.

While the slimy problem may seem silly to some, to others it is serious money.

“It’s clear that the product itself has a value that has become very substantial,” Holden said in a telephone interview. “And as a result of that, demand has gone through the roof.”

That hasn’t escaped thieves’ notice.

Motivated by the prospect of netting several thousand dollars per night, slick underground operators are sucking grease out of containers under cover of darkness and siphoning revenue from restaurants and legitimate haulers who regularly pick up their grease.

Restaurants across the state are collectively losing millions of dollars a year, according to Kara Bush, senior legislative director for the California Restaurant Association, which represents 22,000 eateries.

But there’s more to the problem than that. Holden said shady operators often vandalize equipment in the process.

Buddy Klovstad, part owner of Grand Natural Inc. in Anaheim, has found that to be true. His firm collects grease at more than 1,100 restaurants, golf courses and casinos throughout Southern California.

“We’ve had locks cut,” Klovstad said. “We’ve had holes drilled into the sides of our bins.”

In the middle of the night

The environment is a concern, too, said Michael Koewler, president of Sacramento Rendering Co. and head of a board that advises the state on issues associated with the rendering – or grease recycling – industry.

“These thieves come in the middle of night. They make a mess. And usually it’s near a storm drain,” Koewler said.

Mike Thesing, owner of Rosa’s Cantina, a popular Mexican restaurant in Old Town Temecula, found out firsthand how much of a mess thieves can make during a theft that occurred about a year ago.

“They slopped the grease all over the ground and everywhere,” Thesing said. “It took forever to clean it up.”

No one seems to know exactly how big the problem is because many grease heists go unreported. But industry statistics provide a pretty good idea.

Koewler said California rendering-industry members reported collecting 236 million pounds of grease in 2012 while another 16 million pounds was stolen.

One of the hardest-hit companies is one of the state’s largest grease recyclers: Vernon-based Baker Commodities. Company President Andy Andreoli said that in the past four years thieves scooped up grease 7,000 times in advance of scheduled pickups by firm drivers.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Andreoli, who is also president of the Pacific Coast Renderers Association.

Holden likened the problem to the widespread practice of combing recycled-trash bins at street curbs for redeemable cans and bottles.

“But what they (grease thieves) are doing is illegal,” Holden said. “They don’t have permission to go onto people’s properties, break a lock and siphon out their grease. It’s trespassing. It’s theft.”

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